Part Four:
Create a Health Care Claims Database
The unions of the AFL-CIO influence the purchasing of health care benefits for nearly 50 million Americans, including millions of retirees. Many unions directly are involved with health care purchasing through multi-employer trust funds that cover approximately 10 million Americans. Despite this large presence there is virtually no coordination of purchasing among and between unions today.
One place to start is in creating a Health Care Claims Database (HCCD). All unions would agree to aggregate claims data in a central data warehouse, with all individual identification eliminated to protect patient privacy. The HCCD would be used as a source of information for unions negotiating health care benefits and to identify the best performing health care providers and hospitals.
Through use of such information unions would be in position to drive down costs, improve health care quality, and position themselves as a trusted source of information for the entire public on health care issues.